Bücher der Reihe British Archaeological Reports International Series

The four themes of seafaring and voyaging, colonization and abandonment, human ecology, and social interaction are explored in detail in the papers in this volume using data from the Pacific, the Caribbean, the North Sea and the Mediterranean. These papers, both individually and collectively, demonstrate why island archaeology remains a vibrant and relevant part of archaeological discourse. Clearly, islands are neither peripheral nor isolates in the context of their diverse histories, nor are they peripheral in the context of their contribution to archaeological thought.

Proceedings of the Third International Congress for Young Egyptologists held in Budapest in September 2009.

The Archaeology of Gatherings was a thematic international conference to bring together a range of speakers from different disciplines. It took place at the Institute of Technology, Sligo, Ireland, between 25 and 27 October 2013 during the year of 'The Gathering', an Irish government initiative to engage with the worldwide diaspora. The aim of the conference and of this volume was to take a multidisciplinary approach in order to explore the structures, material culture and psychology behind gatherings of people. This volume thus seeks to contribute to the study of varied types of temporary gatherings both from the contemporary world and from the past. Through time people have gathered together for many reasons, including religious and political assemblies, social interaction and to exchange commodities and ideas. While some of these gatherings occurred in particular buildings or arenas, many were outdoors and temporary, and may have left only limited material evidence of their occurrence. It is therefore hoped that this multidisciplinary approach will provide insight into these sometimes ephemeral events and their remains.

This book examines the Northern (Stone Age) rock art of central Norway, which is dominated by images of marine and terrestrial motifs. It focuses on how these images were drawn and are classified, on the topographical location of the sites, on their dating and cultural context, and on the relationship between rock art and material culture, and offers possible interpretations.

This monograph summarizes the first anthropological survey of human skeletons excavated at the 2nd church cemetery in Pohansko-B¿eclav (Czech Republic). The cemetery was discovered in 2006 in a north-eastern suburb of Pohansko and represents one of the key pieces of evidence about changes in human society at the end of the Great Moravian Empire (9th-10th century), when Early Medieval societies transformed into a new political organization. The monograph provides a summary of the preservation, paleodemographic assessments and paleopathology of the adult and non-adult skeletons with respect to new developments in techniques for assessing age at death, sex, stature and body mass from the Early Medieval skeletal material. Also provided are detailed preservation and osteometric data for further application in bioarchaeology, skeletal anthropology and archaeology.

How did farming spread into Europe, from its origins in the Near East? And what remained of the original Neolithic, once it spread beyond its initial boundaries, to Western Anatolia, Greece and the Balkans? This book looks at the content of the Neolithic pattern of existence that spread into Europe 8,500 years ago, and specifically at practices, defined by reference to the theories of social action as normative acts or ways of doing. Beyond farming practices - this book argues - the Neolithic witnessed the inception of a new set of residential and construction practices, pertaining to the way in which houses were built, lived in and discarded at the end of their use-lives. The argument is substantiated by a detailed review of Neolithic house forms and settlement structures during the interval 8,500-5,500 BC cal. in Anatolia and the Aegean Basin, combined with a re-examination of the absolute chronology for the arrival of the first farmers.

This book describes the broad network of studies which were involved in three years of archaeological research in the southern Tigray (Ethiopia), at the Mifsas Bäri site. The uniqueness of this work lies in the subject of our research and in the final results. Mifsas Bäri is the southernmost Late Aksumite (c. 550¿c. 700 CE) site known in Tigray, the ruins of which dominate the amazing landscape of Lake ¿ashenge. The data collected from the excavation, survey, pottery and anthropological analysis, historical and linguistic researches contribute to the knowledge of a region of southern Tigray during the so-called "Ethiopian dark age". This book offers to the scientific community and to scholars involved in the Ethiopian studies new, convincing results and information regarding a region and a period hitherto unknown in the history of ancient Ethiopia.

This study aims to correct the popular impression that the territory of Southern Pannonia between the fourth and sixth centuries presented an 'archaeological desert'. With a catalogue of over 120 objects and sites found on the territory of Northern Croatia, the author argues that the area was very much incorporated into the newly-emerging world of early Christianity.

Analysis, carried out within a wide chronological framework, of the variability of technological modalities for the lithic industries known from Yemen to date, has allowed a certain 'fine-tuning' in terms of our knowledge of the regional prehistory of Yemen. This research is founded on the definition of the environmental context of the region and the methodologies used for fieldwork and analysis. A focus on the Hadramawt region follows, which is used as a strong model for defining and orienting questionsrelated to the transformations of the role occupied by southwest Arabia throughout prehistory. Starting with the oldest recovered prehistoric lithic artefacts (Acheulian bifaces and Levallois methods) to the youngest (South Arabian microliths), and with an intensive focus on the intermediate Early to Mid- Holocene industries, this work temporally traces a large corpus of prehistoric knapping modalities in Hadramawt and compares these to adjacent regions in Yemen. The temporal and spatial analysis of lithic technologies has enabled for a number of models of prehistoric occupation and dispersal to be proposed for Yemen. At the same time, the discovery and excavation of several stratified prehistoric sites has allowed for a reassessment and restructuring ofthe chronology and terminology used for the region, as well as introducing new research perspectives that have, until now, been undervalued.

This book includes papers representing the final synthesis of a conference entitled The International Conference on the Archaeology of the Mareotic Region. Lake Mareotis: Reconstructing the Past hosted by the University of Alexandria, Egypt between 5th and 6th April 2008.

This book contains papers in English and a paper in French.Summaries in English, French, Italian and Arabic.

This research is presented in three sections. The first is an historic study about 'cura Tiberis, that sets out to clarify the relationship between magistrature and the floods of the Tiber River, with particular attention to the river's delimitation, and the juridicial powers of the 'curatores'. Included is a study of official subordinates. The second section consists of investigations into the 'senatores' who held the 'cura Tiberis' from its foundation until the 4th century AD. The last section gathers and comments on related inscriptions.

This study is the result of a long standing interest by the author in the expression of social identities of the past, perhaps more specifically, social identities as translated through gender, and their resulting cultural expressions and material remains. The overarching subject explored is the gender structures prevalent in the Late Iron Age in the county of Vestfold, Norway. The Scandinavian Late Iron Age, popularly known as the Viking Age, is often represented as deeply and inherently male, with male aggressiveness as the ideal presented to the public, leaving little room for alternative gender roles in the popular imagination. Gender is one of the basic structuring principles of most societies, and as a social category it must be understood in order to grasp the cultural complexity of a society. The author will attempts to show that the gender roles of the Viking Age are perhaps often interpreted and represented too simplistically, and that popular stereotypes fail to take into account the complex multitude of categories, variations and negotiations which one ought to expect from the interpretation of gender. The author's basic proposition is that if the gender roles of the Viking Age were more complex than is often believed, this may be reflected in the mortuary landscape and in the choice of location for burials. To approach this subject, the author looks at the relative positioning of female graves in the mortuary landscape of the Viking Age, and focuses on two different sites in the county now known as Vestfold: Oseberg and Kaupang.

This, the eighth volume in the series (Studies in Contemporary and Historical Archaeology), brings together papers from the seventh CHAT Conference (2009), held at Keble College, Oxford on the theme of 'Modern Materials'.

Grumentum, in the inland of Basilicata, was a Lucanian city and then a Roman colony. This volume publishes the papers presented at two conferences, held in 2012 and 2015. Their aim was to discuss the results of the recent archaeological research in Grumentum and other sites in Lucania. The results are many, and include a new numismatic document concerning the Lucanian city and the reconstruction of the central area of the Roman town from the Late Republican phases to the Augustean project of the new Forum. The most important monuments are studied and their features and transformations are presented according to a chronological frame provided by the finds and their date. Typological studies and chemical and physical analyses have yielded new data which improves our knowledge of the economy, trade, diet and culture of Grumentum. Finally, the transformation of this city into a Christian community is highlighted by new discoveries and findings.Grumentuim, nell'interno della Basilicata, fu una città lucana e poi una colonia romana. Questo volume pubblica i contributi presentati in due congressi, svoltisi nel 2012 e nel 2015. Il loro obiettivo è stato quello di discutere i risultati delle recenti ricerche archeologiche a Grumentum e in altri siti della Lucania. I risultati sono numerosi e comprendono un nuovo documento numismatico relativo alla città lucana e la ricostruzione dell'area centrale della città romana dalle fasi tardo-repubblicane al progetto augusteo del nuovo Foro. Vengono esaminati i monumenti più importanti: la loro forma e le trasformazioni sono presentate entro il quadro cronologico fornito dai reperti e dalla loro datazione. Studi tipologici e analisi chimiche e fisiche hanno prodotto nuovi dati che migliorano la nostra conoscenza dell'economia, del commercio, della dieta e della cultura di Grumentum. Infine, la trasformazione della città in una comunità cristiana viene chiarita dalle nuove scoperte.Contributors: Lorna Anguilano, Luca Arioli, Paola Artoni, Antonella Arzone, Luca Bellucci, Riccardo Bertolazzi, Giulia Bison, Silvia Braito, Alfredo Buonopane, Lianka Camerlengo, Federica Candelato, Antonio Capano, Cristina Di Lorenzo, Federica Fenzi, Helena Fracchia, Ugo Fusco, Maria Pina Gargano, Maurizio Gualtieri, Christian Laes, Barbara Lepri, Chiara Maria Marchetti, Attilio Mastrocinque, Bruna Nardelli, Monica Pagan, Salvatore Pagliuca, Daniela Pizzolato, Jessica Pompele, Lara Pozzan, Antonio Priore, Carlotta Righetti, Roberto Rotondo, Fabio Saggioro, Leonardo Salari, Massimo Saracino, Alessio Sassù, Marianna Scapini, Rossana Scavone, Fiammetta Soriano, Roby Stuani, Francesco Tarlano and Elisa Zentilini

Il volume si occupa di un contesto che parte dal 238 a.C. e giunge al 700 d.C, affrontando lo studio - diacronico e sincronico - della ceramica rinvenuta nel corso del survey del territorio di Nora (Cagliari - Sardegna Meridionale). La ceramica fornisce l'impulso alla ricostruzione dello sviluppo del paesaggio di Nora, sottolineando la presenza di fattorie, ville, necropoli e cave, che erano localizzate nel territorio alle spalle della città. La grande quantità di ceramica, proveniente da tutta l'area mediterranea, mostra un ricco ed attivo panorama, che sottolinea le diverse attitudini di ogni periodo storico, dal primo arrivo dei Romani in Sardegna, sino alla Tarda Antichità, a ridosso dell'occupazione araba dell'isola.This book studies the imported and local pottery from 238 BC to 700 AD that was recovered during a survey of the territory of Nora (Cagliari - South Sardinia) in diachronic and synchronic terms. The pottery provides a stimulus for the reconstruction of the development of the territory of Nora, underlining the presence of farms, villas, necropolises and quarries, which were located in the land behind Nora. The huge quantity of pottery, coming from the whole Mediterranean area, covers a rich and varied spectrum, which reveals the different attitudes of each historical period, from the first arrival of the Romans in Sardinia till Late Antiquity, just before the Arab occupation of the island.

This book presents the analyses, technical interpretation and socio-economic contextualisation of the production remains of zinc distillation from three Ming sites in Fengdu and one Qing site in Shizhu, Chongqing, southwest China. Zinc ore, zinc metal, retorts and slag from these sites were analysed by OM, SEM-EDS, EPMA-WDS and XRD. Following on from a detailed technological reconstruction, some differences were found between the zinc distillation technologies in Fengdu and Shizhu, not only in technical efficiency but also in the organisation of production, which can be explained as adaptation of the zinc production for coinage to the different social, political and economic constraints affecting each group of sites. This book then contextualises and discusses the significance of Chinese zinc production with reference to coinage in Ming and Qing China, but also by comparing it to other brass- and zinc-making technologies in China, India and Europe, and by assessing the influence of Chinese zinc in the international maritime trade.

Les populations des VIIIe-Xe siècles du nord-ouest de la France peuvent être analysées grâce à l'étude de leurs ossements. Pour ceci, la mise en pratique de l'anthropologie biologique (sexe, âge, santé, activité) nécessite une méthodologie rigoureuse et des critères nettement définis détaillés ici. La mise au point de nouvelles méthodes permettant des analyses spécifiques aux informations recherchées est proposée. Les sites archéologiques du corpus correspondent à des situations variées du point de vue de l'environnement et la topographie religieuse. La détermination de leur recrutement mais aussi l'étude de leur état sanitaire et de leur niveau d'activité donne la possibilité de les caractériser et de proposer des hypothèses sur leur nature. Ces données, confrontées aux études menées d'après les sources écrites et archéologiques, donnent alors une image précise des populations carolingiennes, permettent de comparer les divers ensembles funéraires et illustrent ainsi la grande variété mais aussi la hiérarchisation partielle des groupes populationnels carolingiens.The 8th to 10th century populations of the north-west of France can be better understood through the analysis of human remains. If biological anthropology is to be used for this purpose (to determine sex, age, health and activity level), it needs a rigorous methodology and clearly defined standards. The development of new methods of analysis specific to the research data is proposed in this volume. The archaeological sites of the corpus correspond to a variety of environmental, topographical and cultural contexts. Analysis of the selection (or acceptance) of individuals for burial at these sites and the study of their state of health and level of activity makes it possible to characterise the populations, and to suggest hypotheses about their origins. These methods, in comparison with studies of archaeological and written sources, can thus grant us a clear picture of Carolingian populations. The data allow us to compare various burial situations and thus to illustrate the large variety, but also the partially hierarchical organisation, of Carolingian population groups.

The quarry has been considered a cornerstone in understanding lithic production systems. However, the methodological problems associated with the investigation of a quarry assemblage often leads to inadequate recording. The lack of detailed quarry research in Australia focusing on non-axe quarries has meant that they are poorly understood and for this reason a plethora of potentially valuable research regarding the role of the quarry in the organisation of lithic technology is virtually absent. There is a real need to develop quarry studies in Australia and worldwide. It is hoped that this study aides in the expansion of quarry research by providing a sound methodological and analytical approach to the study of quarry assemblages. A detailed technological and spatial analysis of quarries and occupations sites was used to determine the organisational strategies used to acquire and reduce the stone resources available in the arid zone margin of New South Wales, Australia, and identify the reasons why these particular strategies were employed during the late Holocene. Comparisons are made between quarried and non-quarried stone to identify their 'role' in the organisation of lithic technology. The theoretical framework incorporates aspects of non-site distributional archaeology. The individual artefact is the basic methodological and theoretical building block from which greater scales of variation in the distribution and composition of the archaeological record can be examined. This examination uses the concept of 'risk' as the heuristic device with which to explore the costs and benefits of employing different technological strategies. Hence the form of an artefact, its position in space and its time in the cultural system, are the key components of this study. By using a combination of these approaches it is possible to identify not only the many factors that contribute to the formation and distribution of stone resources but also the ways Aboriginal people organised their stone technology during the late Holocene.

That field archaeological research and the conservation of ancient remains are inseparable actions is now a commonly shared opinion. However, in practice this consensus does not come with a check-list of shared protocols which can help in identifying the best possible solutions in each case. The ways of presenting a site to the public are often conceived a posteriori, after the completion of an archaeological project and without taking advantage of all the data produced by secondary studies and analysis of the excavated materials. Field archaeologists have long been confronted by these problems and this work is the result of a symposium on the topic, now known as the ARCHAIA project, held by group of colleagues from the Universities of Bologna, Copenhagen and Zadar, to which some other key speakers were added. This book contains the results of their joint efforts in highlighting what they think may be some of the most promising avenues for future practice and research.

This publication summarises research investigating approaches to the conservation and management of earthen architecture. A number of these different earth-building techniques also make use of earthen mortars and/or earth plasters or renders. In these different forms earth has been used as a building material for domestic, religious, burial, administrative, palatial and domestic structures for the last ten millennia - the legacy is both monumental and vernacular. This research explores these approaches to earthen architecture around the world, and with particular reference to the study area - Iran, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan. The different approaches to conservation and management are critiqued in relation to their practical effectiveness, relationship to conservation theory, values of earthen architecture and sustainability. This study uses the identification of the materials and techniques used for the conservation and management of earthen architecture as a means to understand, articulate and explore attitudes and approaches to the building material, within the context of wider conservation and heritage theory. Part 1 examines earthen architecture, its study, use, physical properties and more abstract values. Part 2 examines conservation approaches to earthen architecture in archaeological contexts. The CD contains appendices of supporting data referred to in the main text.

Proceedings of the symposium held at the Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznä (Poland), May 26-29 2002In the wealth of literature concerning Bell Beakers, the present volume is the first broad treatment of issues relating to their northeast frontier. The book has grown from papers read at the symposium Northeast Frontier of Bell Beakers held in the Institute of Prehistory, Adam Mickiewicz University, in Poznan on 26-29 May 2002. The symposium was co-organized by the AMU Foundation, AMU Institute of Eastern Studies, Archaeological Museum in Poznan and the Poznan Prehistoric Society.

Cambridge Monographs in African Archaeology 57Volume 57 in the Cambridge Monographs in African Archaeology focuses on the problems of chronological interpretation of two "faciès" from the North African Epipalaeolithic: Typical and Upper Capsian. Originally defined as two evolutionary phases, they are considered as contemporary following the development of the radiometric method in the 1950s. The author tackles the question of evolution or contemporaneousness from a systematic revision of cultural attribution, stratigraphy, and particularly the radiocarbon dates. Evidence is presented at the micro level from a new look at the lithic technology from the assemblages of Bortal Fakher, El-Mekta, Relilaï, and Aïn Dokkara, before widening to include the whole Capsian region for a global comparison of cultural attribution, chronology and lithic technology. By integrating what is known of the Capsian, from previous researches and these new results, the author proposes an evolutionary model that emphasizes the development of the Capsian until the Neolithic in the Maghreb. 243 figures, maps, plans, tables, drawings, illustrations; English abstract.With a preface by Jacques Tixier

This work explores the way in which novel chemical criteria can be used to identify charred remains of grains of small-grained grasses used as food by pre-agrarian hunter-gatherers in south-western Asia but which have hitherto rarely been identified with any precision. The grass family Gramineae or Poaceae, is the most diverse, abundant and widespread family of higher plants on the planet. Grasses correspondingly have enormous ecological and economic importance worldwide. Their importance is reflected in the prominent role of grain from wild grasses in hunter-gatherer subsistence. In order to reconstruct past subsistence practices and diet, especially of arid-zone hunter-gatherers, it is important to identify the remains of grasses recovered from archaeological sites. However, the recovered grass remains are most often charred, therefore the interpretive potential can be realized only if these charred remains are accurately identified at the level of genus and, in some cases, species. There are enormous problems in identifying charred remains, particularly when relying totally on gross morphological criteria. There is therefore a need for alternative criteria, such as that utilized by chemical analytical techniques. The core rationale in applying the different chemical techniques is the same throughout: grains are taken from modern grasses of known identity and spanning a spectrum of taxa likely to include all the charred ancient specimens to be identified (the unknowns). These modern grains are then analysed to generate spectra. Equivalent spectra from unknowns are then compared with those from the modern grains to effect an identification. Standard practice has hitherto involved comparing the two sets of spectra (know and unknowns) by visual inspection; i.e. "by eye". However, identifications based on such comparisons are inevitably to some degree untestable and unrepeatable, and this represents a long-standing problem in chemistry generally. In the present project the author has therefore explored the use of chemometrics: i.e. the use of statistical systems to compare spectra in a manner that is rigorously testable and repeatable. This is an entirely new development, and has never previously been applied in the analysis of archaeological data.

This study of the interaction of the southern Iberian early Iron Age communities with the eastern Mediterranean colonisers is based on archaeological evidence from the Guadalquivir valley, the adjacent Mediterranean coast, and a number of sites along the river Guadiana in the modern provinces of Huelva, Cadiz, Seville, Cordoba, Granada, Malaga, Almeria, Alicante, Jáen and Badajoz. In addition to the settlement and cemetery evidence, various types of artefacts, ivory objects, gold jewellery, bronze work and pottery are examined. The investigation concentrates on the time between the 8th and 6th centuries B.C., but the final Bronze Age and, to a lesser extent, the later early Iron Age is also taken into account as the basis for comparison of the settlement pattern, burial custom, and technological and social development.

ARCHAEOLINGUA Central European Series 3This work aims to set up a research agenda to show how archaeology can contribute to an interdisciplinary study of society in the later Middle Ages, in this case in terms of a survey of the possibilities of using archaeology to study Hungarian nobility from the point of view of their living conditions and the functions of their residences. The author, drawn to this theme through an excavation in Pomáz (west of Budapest) in 1995, investigates the co-existence of various settlement types from the point of view of manorial buildings.

The problem of subsistence has received little attention in East African archaeology. Various models of human subsistence strategies have been constructed and a linear chronology from a hunting-gathering economy to pastoralism and agriculture has been the dominant conceptual framework for the research in the last few decades. In this monograph it is argued that this overarch model masks the subtle and perhaps overlapping true nature of a mosaic of adaptation to the local resource base. A broad approach, involving examination of the transition from food collecting to food production as a process rather than as a single event is adopted. The approach also involves the examination of several causes of culture change in the region. It is anticipated that this approach will enable us to better understand the subsistence strategies of the human groups who occupied the Gogo Falls site in the Lake Victoria basin during the Neolithic and Iron Age periods.

In the last twenty years historians and social scientists have seen a veritable explosion of research into food and its consumption and social context. And yet archaeology has been slow to catch on. This is all the more surprising since the 'bread and butter' of archaeology are the residues of food preparation and consumption - animal bones, pottery and other containers, cooking places and other technologies of preparation, plant remains (micro and macro), landscapes and settlements, grave goods, etc.,etc. This volume of papers arises out of a conference held in Sheffield in 1999, organised jointly by The Prehistoric Society and the Sheffield University Archaeology Society, on 'Food, Identity and Culture in the Neolithic and Early Bronze Age'. The aim was to bring together the different archaeological interests - from archaeological science and humanities perspectives - in food as cultural artefact/ecofact, to examine the potential of the new and developing scientific techniques for reconstructing prehistoric food habits, and to foster an integrated approach to the archaeology of food regardless of different researchers' specialisms.

This volume is based on papers submitted to the session "Skull Collection, Modification and Decoration" organized for the Eleventh Annual Meeting of the European Association of Archaeologists, held at University College Cork in Cork, Ireland, September 5-11, 2005. The intent of the volume is to bring together and make available to a wider audience a body of information on skull collection, modification and decoration that spans the Early Neolithic to the twentieth century. The papers are grouped by geographic region - Europe, Middle East, Eurasia, Oceania, New World.

The book explores the issue of the Middle to Upper Palaeolithic transition in Central Europe. The data sets used to investigate the question of human behavioural changes at this time include lithic raw material transfers, lithic edge wear analysis, and settlement patterns.